


Confluence

by SmashingTeacups



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fraser's Ridge, Missing Scene, NSFW, Outlander Summer of Smut, Sex In/Around a River
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmashingTeacups/pseuds/SmashingTeacups
Summary: Jamie and Claire go down to the river on a scorching summer afternoon.





	Confluence

**Author's Note:**

> **confluence** : _(noun)_ the junction of two rivers; an act or process of merging
> 
> Hello everyone! Not sure if you strictly-AO3 users are aware of this, but @missclairebelle, @desperationandgin and I have put together a little project we're calling Outlander Summer of Smut, in which the three of us will be dropping NSFW oneshots once a month during the last weekend of June, July, and August! The other two lovely ladies have already dropped their June contributions; this is mine!

Morning had broken over the Ridge like a fever; stifling, stagnant, the moist heat undisturbed by even the faintest breath of wind. By midday, shimmering waves rose from the cracked, sun-scorched earth, blearing the line between land and sky. Having finished most of my chores in the watery grey light of pre-dawn, I’d spent the rest of the morning slumped in a rocking chair, watching the horizon until my head swam from the effort. 

I worried about Jamie.

Though the phrase _heatstroke_ meant very little to him, it had become my constant niggling concern as we headed into the back half of the summer. My husband’s work ethic would not be hindered by something so inconsequential as 100 degree weather — not when there were trees to fell, crops to tend, cabins and livestock enclosures to build. I understood him, I did; in this budding little settlement of ours, he finally had the ability to reclaim some of what he’d lost when we left Lallybroch, to blossom into the laird and chieftain he was born to be. 

I understood. That didn’t mean I liked it. 

I sent him off every morning with two deerskin saddlebags swollen with water, and a command to stop frequently to rest in the shade and drink; told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted both bags completely drained by the time he came back to me. He kissed me soundly as he left, and promised. He was a man of his word, my Jamie Fraser. Still, I worried.

The sun had just hit its peak in a cloudless azure sky when I finally spotted him on the horizon: a blaze of copper atop a bowed, weary head. He was on the ground, walking slowly, leading his mount by the reins. I stood and put a hand up to shield my eyes, looking the horse over for blatant signs of distress. Christ, that was the last thing we needed: our best workhorse out of commission during peak harvest season.

“What’s wrong with him?” I called as soon as Jamie was within earshot. 

He squinted at me in the bright sunlight, brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Finley,” I replied, jutting my chin at the grey gelding. “What happened to him?”

Jamie looked back at his horse, then at me, the confusion melting into sheepishness. “Oh. Nuthin’, he’s braw. Just didna want to burden him wi’ a rider in this heat.”

I rolled my tongue along the inside of my cheek, hands planted on my hips. “You know, they _are_ called ‘beasts of burden’ for a _reason_ , Jamie.” He smiled and shrugged noncommittally, knowing full well that I wasn’t really angry with him. 

Shifting my appraising eye from the horse to my husband, I sauntered down the porch steps and out to meet him on the sun-baked path. “Where’s your hat?”

Another shrug. “Dinna ken.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. “S’pose I must have left it out in the new pasture somewhere.”

I brushed the backs of my fingers over his neck and upper chest, where the exposed skin had burnt an alarming shade of Boston-brick-red. He hissed a little, grimacing, and my eyebrows shot up pointedly. 

“Aye, I ken,” he mumbled. “I’ll be payin’ for it tomorrow.”

“Mhm.” I rose on tiptoe to kiss him, the last of my frustration melting as I pulled back to study the lines of exhaustion carved into his dirty, sweat-streaked face. I patted his cheek, then gave it a little push, turning him toward the barn. “Go on. You see to Finley’s lunch, and I’ll see to yours.”

He gave me a tired smile that went straight to my bones, then turned away, clicking his tongue at the horse. I heard him muttering in Gaelic as they made for the barn, but understood only a few scattered phrases: _my friend_ and _apples_ and _rest now_. Feeling my heart swell with tenderness, I slipped back into the cabin and set to work slicing an apple for his own lunch, adding it to a plate with a few corn cakes and honey, some salt pork, cheese, and a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes, fresh from the garden.

A few minutes later, I heard the slump of boots on the porch steps, the squeak of the door hinge, and my husband’s heavy sigh as he stepped inside. The heat was stifling, no better than outdoors, but at least the cabin offered a reprieve from the blazing afternoon sun. I prepared myself a plate to match Jamie’s, smiling softly when he pressed a kiss to my neck, then rested his chin on my shoulder. 

“Are those the wee tomatoes ye’ve been tellin’ me about?”

“They are.” Much to my delight, I’d been able to purchase a few packets of seeds from a Mexican tradesman the last time we’d gone to the coast. They were virtually unheard of in these parts ( _at least in this century_ ), but as I’d suspected, they flourished in my summer garden. “Here, taste. They’re sweet.” I bit one in half, savoring the burst of juice on my tongue, then reached up to offer the other half to Jamie. He made a little hum of pleasant surprise as he nibbled it from my fingers.

“Ooh, _verra_ sweet,” he said appreciatively, reaching around me to snatch another off the plate.

“Have as many as you’d like. There are hundreds in the garden.”

Still making contented humming noises at the new discovery, he went to the table, popping the tomatoes into his mouth in quick succession. The gesture reminded me so starkly of Brianna that my breath caught. I could picture her so clearly: school-aged, perhaps nine or ten, sitting at the kitchen table in Boston, blue eyes sparkling and cheeks full to bursting, slurring ‘ _chubby bunny’_ with each cherry tomato she stuffed into her mouth. At first I’d tried to be maternal about it, telling her she was going to choke. Her impish joy had been infectious, though; soon enough, I’d been doubled over laughing right alongside her, the two of us breathless and pink-cheeked, a spatter of half-chewed tomato pulp strewn across the tabletop. 

When I sat beside Jamie and looked up, his eyes were trained on mine, chin tilted curiously. 

“Where were ye, just now?”

And so I told him, recounting the memory as best I could. We had a good laugh about it, but drifted into a heavy silence afterward. It was always bittersweet, giving him these glimpses into our daughter’s life; the mingled joy of knowing we’d created such beauty from our love, and the pain of not having been able to share it. 

Jamie took my hand as we finished our lunch, and I squeezed.

“I should be gettin’ back to work,” he said quietly, though he made no move to withdraw his hand from mine.

My stomach dropped at the very thought of sending him back out into the scorching heat again; at the thought of parting from him at all in that moment, with the memory of our separation still tight and aching in my chest. Tracing the silver ghost of a _C_ at the base of his thumb, I suggested just as quietly, “Stay.”

He brought my knuckles to his lips, letting the kiss linger for a moment before he lowered our joined hands back to the tabletop. “I would, Sassenach, but the men are expectin’ me back.”

“Just for a little while,” I promised, shifting in my chair so that his knee rested between my thighs.

Jamie’s eyes flicked briefly to mine. When he saw the look I was giving him, he drew in a shaky breath and let it out in a measured stream. “I’d never say no to ye, Sassenach.” The pad of his thumb stroked slowly along the vein on the inside of my wrist. “But in this heat, ye truly want to—?”

“I thought we might go down to the river.” I leaned in a bit, reaching out to play idly with the hem of his sleeve. 

“The river?” His accent was deepening, his voice growing husky. “And what did ye have in mind tae do down at the river?” He closed the remaining distance between us, close enough to kiss me, his breath shaking over my parted lips. 

“I have a few ideas,” I whispered, grazing my nose along the length of his. 

“Do ye, then?” His lips ghosted over my chin and back along my jawline. “Like what?” he breathed against my ear.

Despite the rush of heat pooling low in my belly — the warm ache begging me to forget the whole idea and just let him take me there on the table — I somehow summoned the resolve to pull away. Looking at him through hooded eyes, I rose and walked to the door. 

“Come see for yourself,” I bid him over my shoulder, and stepped out into the sunlight.

He didn’t need any more convincing than that.

* * *

Halfway down the path to the river, Jamie’s steps faltered, a belated thought occurring to him: one of the boards on the dock was tilted, and heaven forbid my ever-industrious husband should waste an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Promising he’d be along directly, he doubled back to fetch his hammer and a few nails. I didn’t bother waiting for him; he knew where to find me.

When I reached the river’s edge, it took a great deal of willpower not to strip to my skin and dive headlong into the cool, refreshing water. Fortunately, my baser impulses were held in check by the acute awareness that Jamie and I were no longer alone in our little sliver of the wilderness; we had a handful of tenants now, friends from Ardsmuir, who utilized this same dock. The heat had sapped me of a good deal of my propriety, but not quite enough to skinny dip in what amounted to the public watering station. Had Jamie come with me in the first place, I imagined that resolve might have crumbled; alone, I opted for a bit more modesty. Sidestepping the jut of that damned crooked board, I stripped off my boots and stockings so that I could dangle my feet in the water at the end of the dock. 

Jamie hurried, the promise of what awaited him providing incentive enough to propel him rather quickly through the insufferable heat. I glanced over my shoulder as he loped down to the dock’s edge, sweaty and grinning, a few nails pinched between his teeth and a hammer held up in one hand.

“Got ‘em,” he lisped, and quirked an eyebrow at me as he bent to his task. “Thought ye’d be out of that dress by the time I got back.” 

I returned the arched brow, tilting my head so that my curls spilled over one shoulder. “I do believe that’s your job, Mr. Fraser.”

“Aye, it is,” he said gravely, with a failed attempt at a wink. “And one I take verra seriously.” He stuck the tip of a nail into the tilted dock board, examined the angle with a meticulous eye, and began to hammer it into place. 

Feeling suddenly fevered in a way that had nothing to do with the heat, I turned back to the river and leaned down to wet my hand, then smeared the cool water over my neck and forehead. After a few minutes of purposeful hammering, Jamie stood, made a throaty sound of appreciation for his own handiwork, then came to join me at the water’s edge.

“Thank you for doing that,” I said, my tone impressively casual, as he pulled off his boots and rolled up his trouser legs. “Can’t tell you how many times I stubbed my toe on that bloody board.”

“Aye, mine as well,” he said, holding up a foot to show me a bruise on his big toe. I gave him a sympathetic wince, and he shrugged, letting his feet drop into the water. “Dinna have to worry about it now.”

“My hero,” I teased. Jamie bumped my shoulder with his, both of us chuckling softly. We drifted into a comfortable silence then, faces tipped up to the sun as our feet swayed and bumped together in the current.

“I meant it about being rid of that dress, Sassenach,” he said after a time. I opened sleepy, half-lidded eyes to find him studying my face. He ran the pad of his thumb along my upper lip, brushing away a bit of perspiration. “Ye’re sweating somethin’ fierce.”

“I do not sweat,” I informed him, raising my eyebrows and chin in a lofty expression. “I _glisten_.”

Jamie grinned at that. “Oh, aye?” He dipped his fingertips in the river and flicked a few droplets at me. “Glisten, is it?”

I scrunched my nose as I swiped at the drips. When I reopened my eyes, it was with a devilish smirk to match his own. “I wouldn’t start something you’re not prepared to finish, soldier.”

“Oh,” he assured me. “I’m prepa—”

Without warning, I kicked a massive splash in his direction. Caught off guard and soaked from navel to knees, Jamie yelped, his breath hitching into a strangled laugh. I tucked my feet up under me and scrambled back along the dock, and he leaned back and tried to snatch at my ankle as I fled. He missed by a fraction of an inch, and I barked out a triumphant laugh as I skittered away.

“Och, now ye’re in for it!” he warned, blue eyes taking on a predatory gleam.

Flushed and grinning from ear to ear, I leapt from the dock onto shore and ran barefoot down the riverbank, purposely headed away from the settlement and out toward the seclusion of the wilderness. I had a good head start on Jamie by the time he managed to clamber to his feet. He let out a growl as he bounded onto shore, a feral beast on the hunt. I squealed, heart pounding, and burst into a full-fledged sprint. It didn’t make any difference; those impossibly long Viking legs closed the distance in a matter of seconds. When his strong arms caught me around the waist, the momentum of his backwards pull caused my feet to fly up ahead of me. He grabbed my hips flush against his and held fast while I squirmed violently in his arms, kicking and slapping at him ineffectually.

“Jamie, no!” I squeaked out, panting and laughing in spurts as he pivoted and began to march us both closer to the water’s edge. “No-no-n-n-n—Jamie, don’t you _dare!”_

“Who’s starting a fight they canna finish now?” he purred against my ear. I didn’t have a chance to answer before he lunged, and suddenly we were in freefall; in one well-choreographed move, Jamie spun as we dropped, so that his back hit the water first. The river was just deep enough that we both went under for a moment before rebounding to the surface, sputtering shocked gasps of cold.

Gaping at him in mock fury, I scrambled to my feet amidst a tangle of skirts, shoved him, then gripped his shoulders and tried to dunk him. He’d already righted himself, so my efforts were in vain; kneeling on the rocky riverbed, the water hit him just below his breastbone. He looked up at me, clutching my waist and grinning as I dripped all over him.

“You bloody bastard!” I shoved him again, hard, but only succeeded in losing my own footing on the slippery rocks. I tumbled forward against his shoulder, which juddered beneath my chin as he laughed himself into a breathless, wheezing coughing fit. Though I made a valiant effort to hold a scowl in place, my chest clutched with the effort to suppress laughter of my own. Pulling back just far enough to glare at him — rather ineffectually, as my traitorous lips twitched upwards — I demanded, “Proud of yourself?”

Jamie’s eyes were impossibly blue, sparkling with the reflection of sunlight off the river. He eased back a bit further, making a show of considering me; his gaze roamed the length of my body, the sodden dress clinging to my curves like a second skin. When he’d finished his thorough examination ( _a second, then a third pass, each slower and more deliberate than the last_ ), he put a hand to the small of my back and drew me back to him with a self-satisfied smirk. I let him, any pretense of outrage dissolved in the hunger of his gaze, the answering burn it stoked in my own bones.

“Aye, I am,” he admitted, without a shred of remorse. He reached up his other hand to sweep the wet strands of hair back from my face. Fisting the tangled curls at the nape of my neck, he eased me down until my mouth hovered a hair’s breadth from his. “And as ye may recall, this was your idea in the first place, _mo nighean donn_.”

Smiling openly now, I teased my lips over his as I murmured, “You might have taken my clothes off first.” 

“Nah.” He huffed out a laugh, the warm breath tingling over my lips. I closed my eyes, expecting him to kiss me. When he didn’t, I reopened them, watching the subtle shifts in the lines of his face as amusement fizzled into quiet contemplation. He released his grip on my curls, smoothing the calloused hand downward with exquisite tenderness — tracing the curve of my neck to the hollow between my collarbones, then down the vertical line of my sternum, until he found the spot where my heart beat against the thin strip of bone. He held his palm there, cradling it, his blunt fingertips coming to rest in the notches of my ribs. “I wanted to see ye like this,” he confessed quietly.

I nuzzled the dashed scar on his cheekbone, eyes half-closed with desire. “Like what?”

He didn’t answer — simply watched me intently, eyes glinting like polished obsidian, as he pressed down gently with the pads of his fingertips, encouraging me to lie back. I resisted only long enough to anchor my legs around his hips before I surrendered to the wordless request. Muscle by muscle, I let myself unfurl, sinking back into the water with a deep sigh of pleasure. As soon as I did, I understood. There was something deliciously exciting — _erotic_ — about drifting in the water fully clothed. I felt wicked somehow, uninhibited and wild, with the current rippling through the fabric of my dress, fanning my curls out behind me like a banner. 

I thought I heard Jamie whisper something to me, but his voice was lost beneath the babble of the river. It didn’t matter. His reverence was evident in the way he held me, looked at me; in the careful touch of his palm to my heart; in the tiny sliver of blue remaining around his pupils; in the broken rasp of his breathing; in the warm, solid press of his need where my legs parted around his pelvis. 

I wasn’t sure which of us began to rock first — subtly, slowly, the motion barely distinguishable from the sway of the current. We seemed to become aware of it at the same time; I tipped my head back, breathing out his name, in the same moment that he shifted both hands to my hips, gripping me closer. I ground against him with intention then, trying to create friction where I craved it most.

_“Sassenach_ ,” he warned, the half-moons of his fingernails beginning to dig into the flesh of my hips. Consumed with the sudden, fierce need to hold him, to have him tight against me, I grasped twin fistfuls of his shirt and pulled myself against the current, back up into his arms. Streams of river water billowed behind me as I crushed my mouth to his, panting, capturing the fullness of his bottom lip in my teeth. I smiled when he let out a sharp ‘ _ah!_ ’, then released him and realigned for a deeper kiss. When my tongue slid forward to trace the seam of his lips, Jamie opened in invitation with a soft moan. His arm tightened around my waist as he began to ease us toward the riverbank; lost in the mesmerizing slide of his tongue against mine, I wasn’t even aware that we were moving until the water was lapping at my thighs instead of my ribs.

When we broke for air, our foreheads still pressed together, Jamie brought one large hand up to hold me between my shoulder blades, then slid us both forward into the shallow water, sprawled out on his belly with me underneath him. I stared up into his eyes, and he into mine, as he nudged us slowly toward shore with the tips of his toes. When my shoulders came to rest against the supple green reeds of the riverbank, he leaned down to kiss me again, whimpering softly into my mouth. 

“Christ, if ye could only see yerself,” he murmured, his lips brushing restlessly over my cheekbones, my eyelids, the bridge of my nose. “Ye look like a goddess, _a nighean_. Like Venus, rising from the sea.”

I rolled my eyes, laughing at him even as a warm blush swept across my cheeks. “The things you say, Jamie.”

He smiled against the downy spot behind my ear. “I mean them.”

“I know.” I cradled his face in my hands, drawing him back so that he could see the genuine appreciation in my eyes before I pulled him down to kiss me again. 

We went slowly, taking the time to taste, to coax hums and grunts of pleasure from one another as we rediscovered all of the dark, warm places sacred to the two of us. 

My fingers found the hem of his shirt and peeled it back in bunching inches, reveling in each crevice and puckered ridge of scar tissue they unveiled. I knew them all by heart now, every last line a well-loved route on a roadmap I’d memorized with fingers and lips and tongue.

Once I had the shirt rolled up to his armpits, I drew back long enough to let him slick it the rest of the way off and toss it up onto the grassy bank behind us. I barely had time to take a gulp of air before Jamie was on me again, his kiss hungry, fevered; he dragged his mouth along my jaw, traced the pulsing rope of my carotid with his tongue, until he found the spot at the bend of my neck that made my hips lift out of the shallow water. 

He paused to suck there intently, teasing, knowing exactly what I wanted and holding back — making me gasp out a plea of _“do it”_ before he put the edge of his teeth into the muscular curve, just hard enough to sting. I rewarded him with a moan, long and low and hoarse, that raised goosebumps across his sun-kissed skin. 

His hands went to the clasps on my bodice, mine to the back of his head, both of us suddenly frantic, clawing. Without thinking, I raked my nails through his damp curls and down the sides of his neck—

“ _Ach!_ ” Jamie yelped, his mouth detaching from my skin with a wet smacking sound. I startled, eyes snapping open, releasing him on instinct. Mind still fogged with pleasure, it took me a moment to recognize what the problem was. Once I did, I half-sat up with a wordless exclamation of my own, reaching up to soothe the skin he was rubbing with his broad, blunt fingertips. In the heat of the moment, I’d left him with a matching set of vivid white claw marks on both sides of his poor sunburnt neck. 

“I’m sorry!” I bit down on my lower lip, torn between amusement and guilt. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

Jamie shot me a sidelong glance, lips pursed, nostrils flaring. He couldn’t keep up the ruse for long, though; after a few seconds he was smiling again, cupping my cheeks in his hands. “S’alright,” he murmured, kissing me gently a few times until the tension melted from us both. He nuzzled the tip of my nose, eyes half open and locked on mine. “Wouldna have been a problem if I’d listened to my wife in the first place, hmm?”

My smile spread along his, our lips gliding softly together. “Mm. You know, that may be the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He tipped his face forward as he laughed, so that his nose pressed into my cheek. “Och, come now! Give me some credit.”

“I am!” I insisted, scooping down to place a kiss on the stubbled cleft of his chin.

“The _sexiest_ thing?” he demanded, scrunching his nose at me. I smiled, kissing the wrinkled skin smooth again. 

“Mmhmm.” 

“I beg to differ, Sassenach.” His tongue parted my lips, and I hummed my appreciation as my own slid forward to meet his. I relaxed my chin, trying to encourage him deeper, but he swiftly pulled away, dropping open-mouthed kisses to the skin just above the collar of my dress. He finished the task of unclasping the bodice in a few practiced flicks, then peeled the homespun fabric back, so that the only barrier remaining between my bare skin and his ravenous mouth was a thin muslin chemise. It may as well have been nonexistent; the water had plastered it to my skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. He took one look at the outline of my nipples, puckered with desire and the chill of the water, and made a sound so deep in his chest that I _felt_ it rather than heard it. I expected him to devour me, then; to suckle and bite, hitch my legs up and drive home with abandon.

He didn’t.

“Do ye remember the time I had ye in the cargo hold of the _Artemis_?” he asked huskily, teasing his lips along the underside of a breast. My eyes fluttered shut as I arched up into his mouth. 

“Yes,” I breathed. “God, we were melting.”

“Mm.” He kissed his way slowly up my ribcage, bypassing my nipples entirely; I made a low whine of objection, trying to grab his face and bring him back down. He steadfastly ignored me, proceeding up my neck until he reached my ear. “I made ye cry out so that the whole ship could hear ye. Do ye recall?”

My hips were rising of their own accord, seeking friction. I wrapped my calves around the backs of his thighs, opening my legs wider to him in a not-so-subtle invitation. “I recall having to tell _you_ to be quiet,” I countered breathlessly.

“And afterwards,” he murmured, his tongue darting out to taste the trickle of sweat that ran down my temple, “ye told me the things I say would make me the King of Men, had I been born in your time.” 

“I’m not so sure I said _that_...”

“Oh aye, ye did. Those words exactly.”

“If you say so.” I slipped my hands beneath the wet fabric of his trousers, pulling his muscular buttocks down hard in the same moment that I ground up against him. Jamie’s mouth fell open in a gasp against my jaw, and I took the opportunity to turn in to him, to find his tongue with mine again. He kissed me hard, losing himself for a moment, both of us rocking together, creating a wake in the shallow water. Unfortunately, I had married perhaps the most stubborn man alive; he’d set out to make a point, and after a few seconds he disentangled his mouth from mine, panting, amidst my whimpers of protest.

“And ye canna forget the time I took ye against the wall at Lallybroch…” 

“ _Jamie_ ,” I moaned, positively writhing underneath him. 

“Or under the willow tree last week…”

“What _about_ it?”

“Did I no’ say things to ye then? Things ye _told me_ make ye wet just to think o’ them, when ye woke aching in the middle o’ the night, and rolled over and begged me to take ye?”

“Oh God, is _that_ what you’re on about?” I threw my head back in exasperation, laughing, then tipped back forward and took his face in my hands. “Jamie, it was a joke.” To prove my point, I took his right hand and brought it down to the slick heat between my legs. “You know what your words do to me, don’t you?” I whispered against the corner of his mouth.

His smirk would have been infuriating if I hadn’t been so unbelievably aroused. “Aye, I do,” he murmured, his thumb beginning to work me in slow, tantalizing figure eights. “I just wanted to hear ye say it.” When I began to whimper, to writhe against his hand, he dropped his grinning mouth back down to my breast, his tongue dragging a lazy circle around the perimeter of a muslin-clad nipple. I let out a hoarse moan that ended in his name.

“Tell me what ye need, Sassenach,” he murmured, toying with me mercilessly, his lips dipping to meet the soft mounds of my breasts in delicate, quick flutters; first one, then the other, steadfastly refusing to give me what he knew I wanted. “Should I tell ye what I want to do t’ye?” He took a nipple deep in his mouth, gave a single, firm suck, then released it and whispered, “How I mean to make ye beg before we’re done?” 

His thumb began to work faster, and I arched up out of the water, my face screwed tight in concentration. I twined my fingers into his hair, needing some sort of anchor as white hot pleasure began to coil tighter and tighter in my belly, like a thread of light winding and looping with each swipe of his thumb. I was climbing dangerously close to the edge, growing frantic, desperate. “Right now,” I gasped, my chest heaving against his, “I want you to shut your bloody mouth…” I raked my teeth up his jaw, then hissed into his ear, “and _fuck_ me.”

Blessedly, that seemed to do the trick; as he wriggled his sodden breeks down and kicked them away, it appeared Jamie had no words left but my name and a few Gaelic curses. He breathed both of them into my open mouth as he sat me up and slid inside me in one fluid movement. I made a keening noise loud enough to startle a few roosting birds from a nearby tree, bowing my forehead to rest in the crook of his neck. I took a few steadying breaths, then shifted my weight to take him deeper, moaning appreciatively at the gratifying stretch of him. Heat be damned, I couldn’t remember a time in recent memory when I needed him so badly.

“Hard and fast, Jamie,” I demanded breathlessly. “Don’t hold back.”

He nodded into my hair, one big hand gripping the nape of my neck, the other pressing into the small of my back. The water lapped at our mid-thighs, and after a few quick thrusts, both of our knees digging painfully into the rocky riverbed, we both arrived at the same conclusion.

“Up on the riverbank?” he gasped. 

“ _Please_ ,” I agreed. 

I meant to climb off of him, to let him up, but Jamie had other ideas; both of his arms scooped down to hold me under my thighs, and with impossible strength borne of hard farm labor, he rocked back and then launched suddenly to his feet, carrying me with him. The shift in position allowed me to sink even further onto him, and I crushed a moan into his mouth. His footing on the rocks was precarious enough without me writhing in his arms, so I forced myself to hold still as he maneuvered us carefully up the bank and onto solid ground again. 

“Where do ye—?”

“ _Anywhere_ , it doesn’t—” The air slammed out of my lungs before I could finish as he pressed me up against a massive oak tree. Jamie put his forehead to mine, eyes seeking approval; when he found it, we both dropped our heads onto each other’s shoulders. His hands held fast to my thighs, mine to the fleshy, scarred muscles of his back, and then we were moving together — bucking and rocking, circling and grinding at a punishing speed. He felt good, _so_ good, battering at an ache that had been building all day, but the angle wasn’t quite right; I tried to hitch myself higher against the trunk, trying to find the right position, but every time I started to climb toward release, to coil and tense, the sensation would slip out of reach again. Panting and whining with the recession of the most recent one, I pulled back to look Jamie helplessly in the eyes. 

“Down?” he huffed, kissing my sweaty brow. I sighed in relief, nodding. I physically ached as he slipped out of me, my thigh muscles trembling with unfulfilled need. Jamie didn’t need to ask how I wanted him; he settled down on the grass on his back, and reached his hands up to steady me as I straddled him and sank down. My whole back arched with the sensation of being filled again — deeply, fully, and exactly where I needed him this time. He smiled, panting, as I gave a guttural moan and began to move on him.

“Better?” he whispered.

I returned the breathless smile and peeled the sodden chemise off, discarding it with a wet plop beside us. Laying down on top of him, my breasts pressed to his bare chest, I sighed into his mouth, “ _Much_.” 

His broad hands kneaded my arse and then gripped me firmly to him, an axis to center me. “Hard and fast, Sassenach,” he echoed my own command with a devastatingly handsome smile and an owlish attempt at a wink. “Dinna hold back.”

And despite the sweltering heat, the midday sun evaporating the last of the river droplets from our skin, I did just that. I crushed my parted lips to his, riding him at a gallop, until we were both breathing too hard to be able to maintain any semblance of a kiss. I pressed my forehead to his cheekbone as my whimpers and groans pitched higher, Jamie’s grunts dissolving into choked _“gah”_ sounds that let me know he was getting close. We wound tighter and tighter, faster and faster, muscles taut and straining, hearts hammering frantically against each other’s ribcages. I was close enough that I thought we might finish together, but Jamie made certain of it; as his hips began to snap and stutter out of rhythm, he quickly brought his thumb around to press and circle urgently just above our joining.

I screamed as I came undone, arching instinctively away from the pleasure so hot it burned, shuddering and contracting violently around him. Jamie had just enough time to choke out, “ _Jes_ — God, _Claire_ ,” and then he went stone still beneath me, muscles clenched, as he spilled himself deep inside me. 

I collapsed on top of him, limp and boneless, and laid there for what felt like hours, until our breathing slowed and the frantic thrum of my pulse evened back to its normal, even tempo. Despite the heat — or perhaps because of it — I found myself too exhausted to move, even though a sheen of sweat had gathered where our skin was pressed together. Jamie’s fingertips drew lazy patterns along my back, and after awhile he was the first to stir, propping himself up on an elbow. 

“How about a wee swim, Sassenach?” he suggested, pressing a kiss into my hair. “Hm? Cool off a bit.”

“Mm,” I hummed in agreement, opening sleepy eyes and smiling at him. “Just as soon as I remember how to move again.”

He chuckled, moving his lips to my temple. “I can carry ye, if ye like.”

I shook my head, nuzzling my face against his chest as I did so. “No, I can do it.” I sighed into his skin, kissed it, then laid my head back down again. “Five more minutes.”

“Ye’re even fairer than me, Sassenach. We should get ye into the shade, at least.” 

There was no arguing with that logic. With a heavy sigh, I pushed myself up off of him, and stood on legs that trembled a bit. Smiling and squinting down at him in the bright sunlight, I offered him a hand, and he kindly pretended to accept the help as he launched himself rather effortlessly to his feet. He kissed the back of my hand, then laced our fingers together as we strolled back over to the river, naked as jaybirds and languid with satisfaction. I pointed out a nice spot at the next riverbend with a lovely overhanging willow tree, and we meandered down to it hand-in-hand. 

Though I was delicate and ladylike about picking my way through the reeds and trying to find nice, flat, smooth stones to step on, Jamie took a running leap and dove headlong into the water, creating a huge splash that made me squeal and curl in on myself protectively. He swam like an otter, his slick red head diving and surfacing, limbs twisting, splashing at me gleefully until I finally gave in and dove in after him. The water was glorious against my bare, flushed skin, and I found myself joining in the horseplay; diving between Jamie’s legs, showing him the proper way to do a handstand ( _and flip, when I really felt like showing off_ ), making a competition out of who could kick up the biggest splash. We giggled and played like children in the shade of that willow, until we were exhausted and laid back to simply float, bellies up, fingers occasionally reaching out to find one another when we drifted too far apart. 

I was half asleep, bobbing gently in the current, when Jamie slipped under the water for a moment, and crested again with his head between my knees. I lifted my head a little, eyebrows raised, laughing at him. “What are you d—?”

“Hold on to that,” he instructed, indicating a large willow root that jutted out into the river behind me. I didn’t have time to question him before he hitched my thighs up over his shoulders, and slipped his tongue inside me. 

I gripped the branch for dear life, my nails cutting permanent grooves in the damp bark.

It became apparent almost immediately that Jamie intended this to be an agonizingly slow process. All of the urgency that had gripped him earlier had been spent in a delirious blaze on the riverbank; his tongue was heavy now, lethargic, tasting and stroking with the patience of a man who was thoroughly sated himself. I whimpered and tried to grip him closer with my thighs, whispering a breathy command of “ _faster, Jamie,_ ” which only made him draw back and fix me with a glistening smile.

“Relax, _mo ghraidh_ ,” he murmured, pressing a lingering kiss to the pulse at my femoral artery. “We have time.” And then he dove back in, even slower this time. 

I did as he asked, deliberately releasing the tension in my muscles as I laid back in the water, floating weightlessly like I had been before. Only the tendons in my wrist and fingers were drawn tight as I clutched to the willow root with one hand; the other I tangled in his hair, stroking the wet curls, possessed by the unrelenting impulse to do _something_. 

Jamie hummed his approval as the limp weight of my thighs settled fully on his shoulders; he rewarded me by slicking his tongue upwards and circling a few times, just long enough for my breathing to quicken, before he dipped back inside me. I moaned then, the sound reverberating so deep in my chest that it was almost inaudible over the noise of the river. Jamie must have felt it, though; he smiled against me, the tip of his tongue curving just slightly with his downstroke. 

“ _Oh_ ,” I gasped, my knuckles going white as they clenched into his curls.

“Ye liked that, mm?” he murmured, pulling out to place open-mouthed kisses along the crease of my thigh. 

“God, yes.” I drew his head back with shaking fingers. “Do it again.” 

So he did.

Over and over, alternating his depth, his tempo, knowing exactly when and where to exert pressure. With a precision born of years of practice — a tongue that knew my every intimate secret — he expertly stoked the ache deep inside me, building a tight wave of burgeoning heat and allowing it to ebb again, just a little bit hotter, a little brighter every time. I dropped my head back and to the side, groaning and gasping in turns, my hips lifting with each stroke, unable to keep still.

“ _Jamie_ ,” I keened, a gasping request he understood intuitively. Without pausing at all in his tongue’s relentless assault, he released his grip on my right thigh and laid his palm over my pubic bone, exerting a bit of pressure to hold me steady as his thumb ventured downward. At the very first touch to the hyperstimulated, almost painful bundle of nerves, I jolted up as if he’d shocked me, ready to shatter violently with the slightest provocation.

So he stopped. 

I might have screamed at him in outrage had he not looked up at me in that moment with such pure, perfect, heartbreaking tenderness; his eyes glowed with adoration that bordered on worship, and I drowned helplessly in those bottomless blue depths. Collapsing, I begged between panting breaths, “Kiss me?”

Jamie pressed his lips to the inside of my thigh one last time before letting my hips slip back into the water. He gathered me close to his chest, his broad hands cradling me as though I were something extremely delicate, stroking the pads of his fingertips over the smooth expanse of my back. 

Feeling very much as though I might cry, I melted into him, shaking and vulnerable, and whispered an almost soundless “ _I love you_ ” against his skin. 

“As I love you, my own,” he whispered back. Tilting my face up with the crook of his finger, he brushed his lips over mine, light and fleeting as a butterfly's wings. 

I could feel the length of him pressing against my belly, hard and ready again, but allowed him to lead, to ease me down from the trembling edge with soft, chaste kisses until the sparking ache between my legs smoldered back down to a warm glow. Communicating wordlessly — reading the tells of my body as it molded to his — Jamie knew the moment when I was ready for him. He parted his lips in invitation and I responded eagerly, pressing my tongue to his. Calloused hands slipped beneath the surface of the water to brace my hips, and I shifted my weight back so that I could wrap my legs around his torso. Sliding one hand down between us, I grasped the taut, straining length of him and guided the tip to my core. I looked up into his face, he gave a subtle twitch of a nod, and then we both moved together, letting out matching gasps as he sank deep inside me. 

We were still for a moment, my forehead resting against his chin, feeling his breath shake into my hair. 

“Alright?” he asked.

I hummed agreement, and lifted my face to kiss him. 

“You feel so good, Jamie,” I whispered against his lips. 

“So do you,” he breathed, and then we were moving — weightless, sliding together effortlessly beneath the river’s surface. It was a dance of shocking juxtaposition; the heat of him against the chill of the water providing just enough contrast to heighten the building pleasure. 

And _Christ_ , how it built. 

I molded my fingers to the crisscrossed, muscular curve of his shoulders, hard enough to leave bruises; his palms pressed to either side of my spine, one staggered slightly above the other, to pull me down and in, then release me to the pull of the current, back and forth, over and over, the water churning around and between us with each thrust. I whimpered between clenched teeth, feeling as though I were climbing without end — pushing past the boundaries of my own tendons and muscle and bone, the brilliant white pressure expanding upwards and outwards, _higher_ …

I meant to cry Jamie’s name, but the sound hitched into a desperate wail of vowels. I put my teeth into his trapezius muscle, gasping out a curse.

And still, _higher_... 

I began shaking, trembling so hard the water rippled around us, and Jamie took his cue, doubling his pace. He pressed his head into the curve of my neck, his own soft, strained sounds growing more choked with each thrust. 

“ _Mo chridhe_ ,” he croaked. “ _Mo nighean donn_ —”

I knew what that meant, and pressed down hard, grinding desperately against the jut of his pubic bone. I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything beyond the roar of blood in my ears, the metronome of Jamie’s fevered panting just below it.

_"Claire,”_ he begged.

“ _So close,_ ” I sobbed. “Jamie, I’m so close...” 

He twisted his wrist down between us, fingers groping, parting, then pressing in tight, hard circles. 

And finally, the long-burning fuse exploded.

Lightning ripped through me in blinding shocks of ecstasy, juddering up my spine and out through my nerve endings, pleasure erupting through every last cell in my body. I convulsed, sobbing, collapsing, incapable of any more than the _“Ja-”_ of my husband’s name. He came directly behind me, still choking out a mix of Gaelic curses and terms of endearment as his muscles drew taut as a bowstring. 

Shuddering and gasping against one another, we were both lost in the dazed aftermath of powerful orgasms, stunned into a breathless silence. Though Jamie’s bruising grip on me ( _and mine on him, eventually_ ) softened into gentle, soothing caresses, we clung together for quite a long time, as if we might shatter into pieces if we separated.

When at last we eased back far enough to look into each other’s eyes, it was all we could do to stare at one another, quietly awestruck. Entire conversations passed unspoken between us before Jamie dropped his forehead to mine with a shaky sigh.

“We should get back, _a nighean,_ ” he murmured, lifting my wrinkled fingertips to his lips with a crooked smile. “We’re both startin’ tae look like prunes.”

I nodded, nuzzling the tip of his nose with mine. “Do you have to go back out to the field today?” I asked quietly.

“No, Sassenach. I’ll no’ leave ye,” he said, sealing the promise with a kiss. “I’ll make my excuses to the men tomorrow.” 

Sighing in relief, I finally leaned back and slid apart from him, breath hitching a bit at the shock of cool water where we’d been joined. Still, I kept hold of his hand, fingers firmly entwined with his, refusing to sever that last physical link. 

“And what exactly do you plan on telling them?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him as I led him back toward shore.

“The truth.” Jamie shrugged, blue eyes sparkling. “That I came down to fix the dock, mindin’ my own business, and my wife started a fight I was verra happy to finish.”


End file.
